Improvements in smartphones, tablets and computers in recent years have led to an increased demand for flexibility when it comes to conference calls for the sharing of audio information, video information or other content such as remote desktop protocol packets. Collaboration servers provide freedom in the way that participants may communicate with one another to share audio, video and/or other information.
Cluster node servers for use with video conferencing systems are known. However, such systems suffer from poor performance, both in terms of performance per Watt and also in terms of performance per rack unit.
Multiprocessor (MP) servers are also known. However, such servers are cache coherent systems and therefore require special central processing units (CPUs) designed for cache coherence. These special CPUs are expensive which means that the MP servers themselves are also expensive. MP servers also suffer from poor power efficiency and so are expensive to run.